Florida voters show growing independent streak

THE STATEWIDE DEMOGRAPHICS OF A FLORIDA VOTER

Deanne Jones was raised in a family of die-hard Democrats, and she has been a registered Democrat all her adult life.

But this union organizer's daughter is thinking about dropping her party affiliation.

"I think it's a good idea because the party system divides the country," said Jones, a nurse anesthetist from Orlando.

Newly released voter-registration numbers for the upcoming presidential primary show that Jones is not alone in her thinking. More Floridians are deciding to shun the Democratic and Republican parties.

Of about 10.1 million registered voters in Florida, 22 percent have no party affiliation or are members of a minor party. That's up from 16 percent eight years ago.

Democrats and Republicans still outnumber independent voters. Florida leans Democratic statewide, with 4.1 million Democrats and 3.8 million Republicans. By comparison, there are 2.2 million unaffiliated or minor-party voters.

But the gap is closing.

Since 2000, the number of unaffiliated and minor-party voters -- those who shun the two major parties -- has swelled by nearly 900,000. Meanwhile, the GOP has added 543,512 members, and the Democratic Party 477,773.

Aubrey Jewett, a University of Central Florida political scientist, said the leadership of both big parties has become more polarized, with little bipartisanship, in recent years. That's turned off many moderate voters, he said.

"There's been increasing dissatisfaction with the two major political parties," Jewett said. "There's not as much of a place in the Republican Party for moderates anymore, and there's not as much room for a conservative in the Democratic Party."

The trend is similar in most of Central Florida, and even more pronounced in some counties.

In Orange, one in four voters has bypassed the Democratic and Republican parties. The Democrats have largely held their ground in membership, but the GOP -- once the county's dominant party -- has shown only slight growth since 2004.

Meanwhile, unaffiliated and minor-party registration has more than doubled in the past eight years.

The shift gained steam with the adoption of the National Voter Registration Act, which took effect in 1995.

Also known as the "motor voter law," the legislation gave people the option of registering to vote when they renew their drivers license.

That has swelled the voter rolls, adding many who don't feel any affinity for the major parties.

"We've made it much easier to register, therefore we have a lot more people registering to vote who aren't that ravenous about or interested in politics," Jewett said.

Hispanic voters, who make up at least 11 percent of the Florida electorate, are even more likely to reject the major parties.

But that includes Cuban-Americans in South Florida, who tend to be more conservative.

The number is higher among Hispanics in Central Florida, where independent voters outnumber Republicans in six out of seven counties: Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Lake, Volusia and Polk.

Only in Brevard, a GOP stronghold, do Republicans outnumber independents among Hispanic voters.

The impact of Florida's party-weary electorate won't be felt during Tuesday's primary. Because Florida is a closed-primary state, only members of the Democratic and Republican parties can vote in their primaries.

But voters should expect both parties to try to sway the unaffiliated among them before November.